Question

Company to be used for this exercise is 3M.

• The 3M Company is an American multinational conglomerate corporation operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, US health care, and consumer good

1. Business Level Strategy (Chapters 5 & 6)
   1. What is the organization’s generic business-level strategy?
   2. How do the functional-level decisions and strategies contribute to its business-level strategy?
   3. How do its resources and competencies contribute to its generic business strategy?

Answer 1

answer-

1- Generic business level strategy of 3M is differentiation stratgey in which Company set its business from rivals by offering different products or services. This can be based on quality, price,features, variety etc. This competitive advantage is coming from its broad technology assets and patents to research and develop unique products and therefore charge higher prices. 3M leverage its broad manufacturing capacity, technology, and processes to produce higher-performing products.

2-Functional level decisions and strategies are those which happen on functional leveld departments like marketing, sales,HR, R&D etc. these decisions and strategies have great role in its business level strategy in following ways-

Human Resource (HR) is one of the valuable assets held by 3M. The company has a large number of polymer chemists from diversified background. The forum created by the organization seeks to pulls such chemists across 3M and to share individual knowledge, views and ideas. In fact, the 15 percent rule developed by 3M to foster innovation and creativity among the employees is a key resource for the company.

3M is known for its world-class Research & Development (R&D) activities. The company has a wide range of advanced technologies and scientists with rich experience in relevant areas. These help the company in increasing its competitive advantage over the rivals by coming out with unique products & services.

3M has strong track record in terms of profitability. The liquidity position of the company is also quite strong. Huge capital base along with large amount of reserves can be viewed as other key asset held by the company. Strong assets, both short-term and long-term are major assets of the organization.

3- Its resource and competencies contribute to its generic business strategy by giving company a sustainable competitive advantage based on their capability to combine scientific, engineering and manufacturing competency throughout different technology platforms in order to serve their markets.

valuable- The value of the technology exchange is reflected in boosting innovation. Thus one technology platform can generate profits in different industries.

Rare- There is a necessity for high financial recourses to secure the rareness of this competitive advantage.

Imitable- Company has techology and patents which are very difficult to imitate.

Organization-From the organizational point of view 3M has built its company to support the technology exchange in the best way.